88. NOBODY REALLY CARES ABOUT PEAK OIL
All the peak oilers squealing on the Internet... They don't care about peak oil. They only care about the high oil prices. Ask Aaron over at peakoil.com. Their traffic spikes when oil prices go up, and drops when oil prices go down.
There's a few people out there who actually care about peak oil, and I happen to be one of them. Unfortunately, everybody else is worrying about peak oil because they're getting wallet shock at the pump. When the price goes down, they'll all forget about peak oil entirely, and say "whoo, we dodged that bullet".
I generally avoid making predictions, but I'll make this one: the price of oil will fall again, and when it does, the "peak oil movement" will wilt with it.
I'm sick of all these gasoline junky peak oilers worrying about how we're going to meet demand. "When are we going to get started? When are we going to start the mitigation? We're going to need more and more oil!!!"
You creeps farting up the air in your cars are the reason why we're running out of oil, and why the environment is getting all fucked up. The last thing we need to be doing is building coal liquefaction plants and other "mitigation" so you fools can proceed with business as usual.
We don't need to do anything now to mitigate the peak oil problem except crack down on waste in fuel hog first world countries. Everything else is just denial.
posted by JD @ 11:50 PM
13 comments
13 Comments:
So true, JD.
I think conservation is the first step for everyone.
A small thought experiment:
A gasoline automobile has an energy efficiency of roughly 30% to 35%, and weighs (let's say) 1200 kg.
A larger person, weighing 80 kg, equals 6.66% of weight of this car -which means that in the end about 2,2% of the used energy goes into actual transportation (which is what a car is all about).
As long as we are comfortable enough to waste 97,6% (!!!) of energy used, GASOLINE IS STILL WAY TOO F***IN' CHEAP!
Peak oil is a problem if:
You are involved in the motor trade or are sexually excited by cars. We could still make then using batteries, they just won’t be built like tanks or go so far...
You enjoy frequent £10 breaks to Benidorm by plane
Are a Trucker - there no reason why freight cannot be transferred to rail in the most part, what do people think happened pre-motorway? IE 1955
Enjoy lubricants and plastic things, or a combination of both. Panic ye not. Plastic can be made out of other things.
I care… :D
And I completely agree on this issue. Most peakoilers only care about sustaining their driving habits.
For the record, I use the electric trains here more then my car. But I’m lucky to live near the rail network.
Funny thing is, riding the train is actually much more pleasant and relaxing then driving a car can ever be. If it wasn’t for the auto industry propaganda constantly shoved in front of everyone, and the government backing of the auto industry over public transport, most people wouldn’t miss their cars at all. We’ve all been brainwashed into loving cars so that a minority group can get filthy rich – at the possible expense of human civilisation itself.
Feedstocks for plastic is only a small part of the global petroleum consumption. And we can make up for it using biopolymers or even natural gas from existing supplies (short term) or biological processes (long term)
The world's biggest Gwahar is our backyards. It is called conservation
Don't get confused by who the "energy hogs" are. Sure, energy usage per capita is very high in the first world nations.
Energy consumption per unit of GDP is far higher in developing nations. It is a simple transition into affording more efficient equipment, saving money and the environment.
Go here and here and find out for yourself.
I should stress that GDP is extremely important for the environment. I already mentioned the efficiency of energy generation, but also there are more efficient agricultural efforts, in addition to far higher health standards.
As for conservation in the first post:
I drive a Vespa, which isn't exactly a hog at 75MPG in city, but those numbers with % payload are misleading. It weights 200 pounds. I weight 170. Does that mean it is only 45% efficient? Don't be ridiculous.
if the popularity of peak oil sites goes down, so will the popularity of peak oil debunked sites. You are little more than the blogoshpere's version of a scavenger, JD.
what a hack. I echo the previous statement.
"Does that mean it is only 45% efficient?"
Unfortunately, yes.
That's the score with hydrocarbon combustion motors. Far more energy is lost as heat than is used for motion.
It's a physical fact.
if the popularity of peak oil sites goes down, so will the popularity of peak oil debunked sites. You are little more than the blogoshpere's version of a scavenger, JD.
I haven't the slightest interest in how many hits this site receives. Unlike the doomers, I am not selling a book, or tote bags, or cassette tape "package deals". I will continue to write on this topic because it is a grave long-term issue affecting the future of mankind. I'm as stubborn as a mule, and I could care less if anybody is listening.
I got suddenly more interested in Peak Oil because I read in the Vancouver Sun newspaper on Sept 10/05, on the Op-Ed page, that it has "long been known" to be a problem.
"Long been known"? the subject has only remotely come into the news in the past few years. A few have been aware, but I ask people and all so far have no idea of Peak Oil.
The public will care about Peak Oil if the price of gas rises dramatically and they start asking more questions.
I have to agree with the first anonymous post and omnitir's post. I agree that most peak oilers are more concerned about their driving habits. What a bunch of woosies. If i lived somewhere where the mass transportation was easier to use (i'm planning to move in a few years, once i'm out of school to a town thats reasonably sized and has a good mass transit system) I'd rather take a bus or train then drive my car. But luckily, my car gets okay milage and I try to conserve when I can. I don't make excess trips, which regardless of the price of gas, makes sense for me anyways. I live in a small town now, but I want to move due to the fact that if the rock falls off of the canary islands, my town will be like atlantis (the mythical city, not the shuttle).
3 years later, what is your position on oil prices?
Check out the Transition Town movement, if you haven't already: http://www.transitiontowns.org.nz/
When you combine the problems of peak oil AND climate change, coal liquefaction, tar sands, shale oil--all of that is simply not an option. And "boifuels" are heavily subsidized, both with government $$ AND with petroleum. Ethanol is a petroleum product.
The other thing you can find with transition towns is that it's not about what I can do individually, and it's not about what the politicians can do. It's about what we can do on a local scale, working together. Because that's where the solutions will have to come from: local communities.
Power Down.
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